GRACELAND: Moral borders vanish in Pinoy thriller

GRACELAND: Moral borders vanish in Pinoy thriller

MOVIE REVIEW:

By Beatrice S. Paez

“Graceland” is a high-octane thriller that shows the great lengths a father will take for his family. Three fathers face the unthinkable: their daughters fall prey to unscrupulous men willing to exploit them at whatever cost. Surprising twists abound in a film that drew inspiration from headline-grabbing kidnapping incidents in Manila.

This time writer-director Ron Morales is the one making headlines for his second effort, earning critical acclaim in the international indie film circuit and beyond.

Morales delivers an arresting thriller that puts a man’s ethics to the test. The film tackles the issues of human trafficking and crime with sensitivity, instead of using it as a device to escalate the drama for cheap thrills. The hype is in the tricky scenarios that unfold and the competing motives that frame the kidnapping.

The city’s underbelly is exposed at every turn, swaths of land swarming with waste and strips of land with rows of brothels set the film’s dark tone. In this morality-packed flick, the moral compass is skewed: deceit becomes second nature, principles dissolve under pressure and no one is left unscathed.

Family man Marlon Villar, portrayed by Arnold Reyes, scraps by as a chauffer to corrupt politician Chango (Menggie Cobarubbias), driving the boss’s daughter to school and working after hours to facilitate Chango’s sexual exchanges with underage girls.

Villar finds himself complicit in Chango’s repugnant pursuits, unable to break his silence, to protect a job he desperately needs to finance his terminally ill wife’s hospital stay as she waits for an organ transplant.

He is confronted with the grueling task of rescuing his daughter held for ransom while keeping under wraps the full details of her captivity. A botched kidnapping takes place while he is on duty, taking his daughter, Elvie (Ella Guevara) and Chango’s daughter, Sophia (Patricia Ona Gayod) home from school. The kidnappers mistake Elvie for Sophia, grab her instead and kill Sophia in the process.

To ensure her safe return, he is forced to pretend both have been captured and must convince Chango to pay the ransom. Fingers try to pin the blame on him as the likely suspect: the sex scandal is leaked to the press and Villar is sacked for failing to cover their tracks.
The parts are convincingly acted with restraint, and never veer into hysteria despite the unbearable dilemma the actors must endure. There are no heroes in this film, only characters with tragic flaws. Villar begs for the audience’s sympathy in his efforts to get his daughter back alive. But he is hardly a sympathetic character, as he is partly responsible for setting the circumstances in motion.

Poverty is not the prime motive but is the precipitating cause of the kidnapping. The culture of impunity and corruption leave little recourse for justice for the poor. Those without means are forced to concoct twisted plots to mete out their idea of justice.

But money as a currency to escape scandal and exploitation has it limits. Guilty parties and innocent bystanders must pay for the actions of a few with punishing consequences.